The present invention relates to clothing and more particularly to a garment designed to hold portable electronic devices, such as cell phones, pagers, PDAs, and other items such as wallets, keys, glasses, and allowing use of the devices without removing them from the garment by incorporating conduits and passageways therein to interconnect the devices.
Recently, the use of portable electronic devices has increased dramatically. These devices include, but are not necessarily limited to, cellular/digital phones and/or other similar wireless communication devices such as pagers, personal digital assistants (commonly referred to as PDAs, Palm Pilots7 and/or Pocket-PCs), microcomputers, eBook readers, MP3 players, recording devices, Walkman7 and other similar portable listening devices, portable television sets, portable internet devices, radar detectors, pedometers, remote control units, portable global positioning satellite (GPS) devices, two-way radios, cameras and video recorders/camcorders (including digital cameras and video recorders/camcorders), calculators, and/or miniature flashlights. Moreover, there are a multitude of accessories related to such portable electronic devices, e.g., modems, portable printers, portable keyboards, memory cards/discs and related devices, portable scanners, batteries and other energy sources including charging and AC adapters, cradles, cables, modules, earphones/headphones/headsets and other listening devices, microphones, recording devices, software, stylus, among others. This change has corresponded with a change in the dress code. No longer are business suits the uniform of choice. Now people dress much more casually, often wearing slacks or a skirt, as applicable, and a shirt. Moreover, due to health and safety concerns, among other things, people are now using hands-free listening and talking devices at an increasing rate.
Many business activities now require individuals to carry and to use efficiently a large assortment of equipment and supplies, i.e. the devices listed above. Currently, such articles are carried in various bags, pockets, cartons and cases. As a result of relatively unorganized carriage of this equipment and supplies, their use consumes excessive time and energy. Additionally, recharging of the batteries and care of equipment when not in use also consumes a large portion of time that could be decreased with an effective tool for handling and using such items.
Usually, vest or like articles must be particularly sized for an individual user, especially if there are any internal interconnected parts. To date, however, no garment exists designed specifically to allow a person to use existing portable electronic devices without the incorporation of any hardware that may be required for the connection to other devices while wearing the garment at the same time as also being fashionable and versatile enough to wear in the average workplace setting, such as an office. Additionally, none provide for carriage of numerous devices in ways that can be used efficiently with minimal stress on the lower back of a wearer""s body, and that may be adjustably fitted for multiple users while still remaining functionally interconnected. The present invention addresses these concerns.
The present invention is particularly directed to a garment that supports and interconnects portable electronic devices. Although initially designed as a vest, portions of the garment in the present invention, most notably the passageways and pockets, also can be fabricated into a shirt, coat or jacket. The vest includes two exterior breast pockets, two hidden breast pockets, four exterior abdomen pockets and four interior abdomen pockets that are provided with internal openings to allow the passage of connections from back to back pockets. The vest also includes closable passageways that allows for the interconnectivity between the breast and abdomen pockets and the right and left side of the vest. The passageways also connect the neck area of the garment to the pockets to allow for the attachment of listening and microphone devices.
Other features of the invention will become apparent from the drawings and the detailed description of the invention is to provide for a garment that can allow for a plurality of wires to be routed from one pocket to another and to the neck area of the garment to allow for the interconnection of portable electronic devices and to keep the wires organized and hidden out of site.
A further object of the invention is to provide a computer housing of cloth material that may be worn by the user without restricting the user""s body movement and the ability to use such equipment while wearing the garment. My garment can provide an ergonometric housing for a digital computer or for other electronic equipment that one may wish to carry about while allowing the user relatively unrestrained body movement.
Further, in some aspects, the garment can be provided with compartmentalized pockets to retain beverages and prevent contact between electronic devices, and can also be structured to fit a wide range of individuals by an adjusting waist structure. My garment can enable ordered and continued interconnection of internal features despite the adjusted size, thereby enabling multiple users to wear the same vest.